Don’t remember the ELF (by name anyway)? You’ll probably remember them as the “eco-terrorists” that torched a whole bunch of buildings in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1990s. They were radical environmental extremists who made the nightly news by setting ablaze a Forest Service ranger station, a slaughterhouse, a timber company office, an SUV dealership, a $12 million resort in Vail, and on and on and on.

It’s a short, volatile period in the history of the environmental movement that most mainstream environmentalists would probably prefer to remain forever swept under the rug. (And, it should be noted, most environmental activist groups and organizations, including NRDC, which publishes OnEarth, immediately and vehemently renounced these actions at the time.) Indeed, many mainstream environmentalists probably aren’t thrilled that there’s a new documentary out about the explosive rise and sudden fall of the ELF.

And that’s a shame. Because If A Tree Falls is a powerful and fascinating film, and one that could and should be instructive for participants in any social movement.

In just under an hour and a half, you learn how the ELF grew out of Eugene, Oregon’s disaffected, radical environmental scene, how its members plotted and executed the actions, how they were caught, and, ultimately, how the federal government prosecuted them as “domestic terrorists.” The film’s tone swings from a Rage Against the Machine video to a Law & Order episode to a scene from Dr. Melfi’s office as some of the activists, still conflicted, struggle to justify -- or renounce -- their actions.

Filmmaker Marshall Curry did not set out to push an agenda. The film doesn’t editorialize, and it certainly doesn’t romanticize the activists or their actions. Curry, who directed the Oscar-nominated Street Fightabout the 2002 Newark mayoral elections, takes great pains to expose all angles and all perspectives. (It’s telling that both the U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case and a former spokesperson for ELF both gave unequivocally positive reviews of the film.) There are extensive interviews with characters on all sides of the story -- former ELF activists, the U.S. Attorneys, other radical (but not destructive) environmentalists from Eugene, cops, and victims of the actions.

These interviews are loaded with eyebrow-raising moments in which the parties involved often say pretty much the exact opposite of what you’d expect to hear from them:

There’s a blessedly sensible logger who points to a recent clear-cut swath of old growth and says, “it’s not radical to try to save the last five percent [of standing native forests in the United States]. What’s radical is logging 95 percent.”

There’s a police captain who worked to crack the case, but still maintains that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. If you agree with their motives, they are a hero. If you disagree with their motives, they are a terrorist.”

There’s Daniel McGowan, one of the ELF’s more consistent conspirators and the film’s central character, sheepishly admitting that “in retrospect, it’s hard to justify” some of the actions.

Then there’s Kirk Engdall, the Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case, in perhaps the film’s most thoughtful and wrenching soliloquy, saying that he’s become more “circumspect” over the years and that “the world is not black and white.”

It’s not that simple. When I first read about these arsons and became involved in the investigation, and see all the damage and harm they’ve done, they’re not very likable people at all. Once you get to know them as human beings, you start looking at their motivations, because you’re curious. Why did they do such a horrible thing? You look at their background, you look at their childhood, how they’ve evolved from the days when they committed these crimes. Then, instead of just being a cold mug shot, they become human beings, and so you begin to understand them. That’s not saying you approve of their conduct or behavior, but you gain an understanding and insight as to how it came to pass that they started doing these things.

It’s conflicting to watch. If you’re human, it’s hard not to develop a pit of fury in your stomach as you watch home video footage of Eugene cops pepper spraying an activist who is hanging on for dear life to a tree 100-feet above the ground. (That “was the day that pissed off a lot of people in this town,” one old Eugene activist says. “People were radicalized.”) But then you’ll shake your head with contempt when you hear that one of the ELF targets was torched on bad intelligence -- a tree farm rumored to be growing genetically modified species was actually just a plain old tree farm. Your head will spin considering the nature of terrorism. With more than 1,200 incidents claimed by the ELF, there was never a single death or injury. But the guy who owned the timber company couldn’t sleep for months for fear after his office was burned down. What to make of that?

Curry steps back and doesn’t take sides, and lets the characters do the talking. That’s perhaps because the subject of the film fell into his lap in 2005 when an FBI squad showed up at his wife’s nonprofit legal services office in Manhattan and hauled away the webmaster. This was McGowan, a soft-spoken, affable guy who was personally involved with a handful of actions and was one of 19 former ELF members rounded up that day in 2005.

McGowan becomes the film’s central character, but he’s such a nondescript and -- there’s really no better way of saying it -- bland personality that it’s hard to ever reconcile his character with the extreme actions and his prosecution as a “domestic terrorist.” Perhaps that’s the point.

Evenhanded as it runs, what you take away from the film probably has a lot more to do with your own personal ethics than anything else. What I got out of it was: these acts of arson were pretty naive and stubborn, but branding and prosecuting these activists as “terrorists” is extreme. If you’re looking for a film that’s going to celebrate the radical actions and ideology of the ELF, you’re probably going to be disappointed and uncomfortable. But you’ll probably feel the very same way if you’re a hardline conservative who hates hippies nearly as much as terrorists. There’s “no black and white,” as U.S. Attorney Engdall reminds us, in this story.

Underneath the “what constitutes terrorism” question that dominates the film, though, there’s the interesting question of: what works for a movement? Clearly, destruction and violence don’t work. McGowan, in one of his more thoughtful and ambivalent moments, recognizes that the ELF’s actions didn’t really move the needle on environmental policy, or regulation of capitalism, or anything else the group cared about. But then he asks: “When you’re screaming at the top of your lungs and no one hears you, what are you supposed to do?” It’s a question that environmentalists need to think more about, and it’s a reason why environmentalists from across the ideological spectrum should watch this film.

Ben writes about climate, energy, and sustainability for numerous publications and is the former environment editor at GOOD. He's the author of "The Big Green Apple: Your Guide to Eco-Friendly Living in New York City" and currently lives in Vermont. A bicycle enthusiast, Ben has...Ben writes about climate, energy, and sustainability for numerous publications and is the former environment editor at GOOD. He's the author of "The Big Green Apple: Your Guide to Eco-Friendly Living in New York City" and currently lives in Vermont. A bicycle enthusiast, Ben has ridden across the United States and through much of Europe.MoreClose

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